"God's mercies are new every morning and His compassions fail not!"

Solitude is the furnace of authentic formation of the soul and sense of being; solitude with ourselves and God's loving and living Presence takes us to a place of transformation of true vision for what life is meant to be, rather than having that dictated to us by the society around us - a wandering and rootless society, not centered in authentic self-knowledge and a personal connection with and knowledge of the love and Truth of God our Maker and Savior and which shapes a very shallow vision of what can be. The inner journey into our true selves found in communion with our Friend and Rescuer, Jesus of Nazareth - the Eternal Word and Son of our Creator Father - releases us from the false self the world has told us we are. We are listening to the wrong voices! That's why solitude is so vital; so we can hear "the sounds of Silence" and allow the One who is Love and Truth to show us, speak to us, and heal us so that the true self, we've been created to be and to become can begin to emerge and come out into the light of Day.

This true self, this new self, serves as a compass for our living in the midst of a wondering, wandering, aimless generation whose only reality is material, but whose hearts long in the silent moments for something More; something deeper, more satisfying, more substantial and more lasting. It takes courage to journey into solitude and meet with God face to face and heart to heart; to face the fears, the pains, the uncertainties that we so desperately try to avoid and deny and drown out with busyness, constant activity, noise and other forms of medication. Gather your courage, call out to the One who loves you and made you for a larger Life and ask Him to meet you in the silence and talk to you about the Larger Story your life is meant to inhabit and live in; where you find out who you really are and who He really is. Listen! He's calling......

An Alleluia People

We are living out since the Great Sunday of the year, the Easter season of 50 days, the time between Easter Sunday and the Sunday of Pentecost.  The great Feast of The Ascension of our Lord falls 40 days into this glorious season.

Eastertide is a season of great rejoicing and thanksgiving and of abiding hope and faith in the promise of God that in Christ we, too, will share fully in this new life He has purchased for us with His suffering, death and mighty resurrection.  Here, we have a "foretaste", a "pledge", an "earnest" or "down-payment" on the fullness of our inheritance in the eternal kingdom of joy, righteousness, peace and praise.  An old Gospel hymn states it this way, "O, I want to see Him, look upon His face...".  That will be a joy that cannot be comprehended or explained in human experience, but only hinted at in the "down-payment" of the indwelling of Christ's Holy Spirit in our hearts.  Sometimes, we get a glimmer of that fullness of joy that is found only in His Presence, gazing upon His awesome beauty; that is, when we are grateful, thankful and full of loving praise and worship from our hearts and whole being to the One who has loved us and given Himself for us.

  So, we are called to be an "alleluia" people, in every season of life - even in the midst of sorrow, loss and death.  For our risen Lord has transformed the enemy's last weapon of death into a gateway to a glorious and unending life of fullness, wholeness, completeness and wondrous discoveries unlimited.  As we learn to die daily to sin, self, satan and the world, we are already tasting the death of Christ, as well as the beginnings of His new Life of Resurrection glory in our inner being.  As an alleluia people we are called to live from the inside out, for St. Paul reminded us that though our outward man (our physical nature) is wasting away day by day, our inner life is being renewed by the fountain of the abundant and unending and unbounded Life of the Risen One we have come to share in, even here, even now.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!